Tag Archives: double album

As anyone with even a passing interest in me knows, my favourite film of all time is the 80s B-Movie ‘Night of the Comet’. Not only is it the blueprint for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also everything I’ve ever done in my life. So when I got the opportunity to go to the “cinema” where final girl ‘Reggie’ works in the film (played by the criminally underrated Catherine Mary Stewart), I jumped at the chance. The venue was the El Rey, on Wiltshire in LA and as the taxi pulled up to that iconic entrance (where Reggie got locked out!) I nodded at the driver like he had just delivered me to Valhalla. “Look Tom…” I said to my friend Tom because that’s his name, “THAT is where Reggie got the high score in Tempest, they should have kept the machine here, it would have been better…” and “I guess the projection room where Reggie and her loser boyfriend stayed in overnight that protected them from the comet’s destruction is up those stairs on the left.. do you think we can see it?”. Tom shook his head no and downed his pint to block me out, for we weren’t there to satiate my desire to act out the first 10 minutes of Night of the Comet (though I tried), we were there to see one of our favourite bands play. That band is Islands and today POST/POP is releasing not one, but TWO new albums for them! ‘Taste’ and ‘Shall I Remain Here At Sea’ are the albums in question and both have all of the elements that have made me stick with Islands over the last decade or so.

You can listen to them both here, and I suggest you do because they will make your ears awesome:

This is the first double cassette album from POST/POP, mostly because the infrastructure currently doesn’t exist to manufacture double cassette boxes in quantity. I’m not talking about those 90s “rave” style DVD clamshell style double cassette boxes, I’m talking the classic butterfly double cassette boxes that open either side. Finding these in the UK is impossible so we had to actually make them! There is also the challenge of making a reverse j-card to fit in the second slot (sorry to get all “inside-tape labels” but people have asked questions!) and that was new to me too.

Both albums represent exactly what POST/POP is about. Innovative, catchy as hell and perfectly suited to a colourful rectangle of plastic. If you’ve already listened to this, you’ll want to buy the tape and as it’s in very limited quantities, don’t hesitate! I’m not sure when I’m going to do another double tape ( and for a band as great as Islands!) so buy by clicking on the shop link at the top, or that photo of HETTIE on the right, or even at the below link:

As I left the El Rey gig, all those years ago, Islands had led the entire crowd outside the venue to continue the gig on the pavement (sidewalk for the americans out there!) and let off some fireworks at close range to my face. It left me with an image burned into my retinas (it could have been a sparkler) that this band would always be a part of my musical lexicon and I am more than proud to be releasing this double cassette on POST/POP.